Lab 7 - Station Fire of Los Angeles County

Station Fire Perimeters with Main Roads and Boundaries of National Forests

3D Digital Elevation Models of Station Fire Perimeters with Roads and Angeles National Forest

From August 26^th, 2009 through October 16^th, 2009, the Station Fire of Los Angeles County blazed through 160,577 acres of highways, national forests, and various communities. Even though the Southern California region was victim to many different wildfires in the year, the Station Fire was the most dangerous, deadliest, and costly in the series of 63 wildfires in California in 2009.

The numbers of the Station Fire truly conveys how the tenth largest wildfire in California, and the largest experienced by Los Angeles County, was a significant threat to Southern California. The Los Angeles County Fire Department Captain, Mark Whaling, verbally warned the county with his knowledge of any fire’s capability to shift in magnitude and/or path with the comment, “Red sky in the morn, sailor be warned.” Quantitative statistics posted by the Los Angeles Times, less than one month into the fires surge, were already displaying damage worth $28.5 million, two L.A. County firefighters killed, eight injured victims, 62 homes destroyed, and only 42% containment. With considerable effort from firefighters, politicians, governmental employees, and many volunteers, the fire was 91% contained on September 19^th, 2009 with $93.8 million spent in fire fighting efforts. Finally, with the help of wet weather conditions, 100% of the fire was contained on October 16^th, 2009.

The Station Fire forced the evacuation of numerous communities including Palmdale, Glendale, Angeles National Forest, La Crescenta, Littlerock, La Cañada Flintridge, Altadena, Arcadia, Pasadena, Sierra Madre, Pacoima Canyon, Devil's Canyon in the San Gabriel Wilderness Area, and many others as well.

Some of the evacuation of many Los Angeles County communities was not only due to the direct threat of the fire destroying housing, but also due to the heavy smoke and ash clinging to the valley’s horizon. The air quality dropped to such a hazardous level, communities were not able to reside in their homes even if they were not directly at risk of the burning path of the fire. Specifically, San Gabriel Mountains, the San Fernando Valley, the San Gabriel Valley, the south and southwest Los Angeles County coastal areas, the Hemet/San Jacinto area and the west San Bernardino Mountains were heavily polluted with smoke, ash, and debris from the fire. One of the warnings issued to residents in threatened areas stated, “All individuals are urged to exercise caution today and avoid unnecessary outdoor activities in any area directly impacted by smoke. The advisory includes areas where residents can see or smell smoke. Wind patterns today have shifted, with heavy haze blanketing the Los Angeles basin and cutting off views of the fire from as far away as Orange County.” Experts of the South Coast Air Quality Management District frequently issued warnings, such as the latter quote from the Daily News: Los Angeles, throughout the months of September and October to keep the health risks to a minimum.

Unfortunately, even though many individuals were saved and helped by the continuous warnings and evacuations, the lives two Los Angeles County firefighters were taken due a section of the fire rapidly smothering a road, near Mount Gleason, in the Angeles National Forest. The two firefighters vehicle was tailed by a fast-moving fire close to their designated post, Fire Camp 16, for the Station Fire fighting efforts. The roads surrounding Fire Camp 16 were lined with dense smoke, which made escaping the fire impossible.

Entire roads and segments of highways were blocked by Caltrans in order to minimize the amount of vehicle accidents during the months that the Station Fire caused hazardous road conditions. Caltrans closed the Angeles Crest Highway, running from Foothill Boulevard to State Route 138, indefinitely due the hazards caused by damaged guardrails, charred road signs, and the lack of intact road stripping.  The closing of the Angeles Crest Highway, a two-lane road experiencing more than 11,300 commuters per day, is only one example of the many main routes shut down because of the many risks proposed by the Station Fire.

Bloomekatz, Ari B. "Station Fire Is Largest in L.A. County's Modern History | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times." Top of the Ticket | Bleeding Heart Democrat Obama Halts Thanksgiving Execution (of Turkeys); They Get Life without Parole | Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 2 Sept. 2009. Web. 23 Nov. 2010. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/09/station-fire-is-largest-in-la-county-history.html

"Firefighters Honor 2 Comrades Killed in 'Station Fire' - Ktla.com." Los Angeles News and Video for Southern California - KTLA.COM - KTLA 5 - Ktla.com. KTLA News, 4 Sept. 2009. Web. 24 Nov. 2010. http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-firefighters-bio,0,7708207.story

Rantas, Khadijah. "State of Emergency Declared in California Wildfire - CNN.com." CNN.com International - Breaking, World, Business, Sports, Entertainment and Video News. CNN, 23 Sept. 2009. Web. 23 Nov. 2010. http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/09/23/california.fire/

"Valley Air Quality Poor from Station Fire - LA Daily News." Home - LA Daily News. Daily News: Los Angeles, 30 Aug. 2009. Web. 24 Nov. 2010. http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_13235062?source=pkg

"Wildfires in Southern California - The Big Picture." Boston.com. The Boston Globe, 2 Sept. 2009. Web. 23 Nov. 2010. http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/09/wildfires_in_southern_californ.htp

Lab 5 - Projections

Map Projections

The distance between Washington D.C. and Kabul is approximately 6,936 miles.

The Conformal Projection: Mercator displays a distance of 6,865 miles between Washington D.C. and Kabul.

The Conformal Projection: Asia North Lambert Conformal Conic displays a distance of 6,800 miles between Washington D.C. and Kabul.

The Equidistant Projection: Equidistant Cylindrical displays a distance of 5,064 miles between Washington D.C. and Kabul.

The Equidistant Projection: Equidistant Conical displays a distance of 6,970 miles between Washington D.C. and Kabul.

The Equal Area Projection: Cylindrical Equal Area displays a distance of 10,192 miles between Washington D.C. and Kabul.

The Equal Area Projection: Asia North Albers Equal Area Conic displays a distance of 7,268 miles between Washington D.C. and Kabul.

Map projections are commonly used to reshape Earth’s three dimensional surface into a two dimensional image. This transition is mathematically calculated by altering the x, y, and z coordinate planes into x and y two dimensional space. The practicality of the two dimensional map projection is by far the most advantageous quality of ArcGIS map projections. The ability for users to be able to manipulate the characteristics of the map, and personalize such editing, allows for a more efficient and understandable geographical display of a designated region. Even though there are advantageous qualities to a map projection, it is still an abstraction of the three dimensional field, which induces distortions of the Earth’s shape, area, distance, or direction.

One disadvantage to the Conformal Projections is the fact that even though the map keeps the true shape by angles of highlighted features, such as continents, the projection displays inaccurate internal areas of the features. For example, the to conformal projections, Mercator and the Asia North Lambert Conformal Conic, alter the spatial equivalency of different countries. Greenland is shown to be much larger in comparison to Mexico, but in reality, these two countries are spatially equivalent. The conical arrangement of the Asia North Lambert Conformal Conic projection allows for angular accuracy to be upheld, but sacrifices the visual comparison area within different features.

Another disadvantage of map projections is seen specifically in planar conical projections. Planar conical projections are the best displays of global regions, which do not require a high degree of positional or spatial accuracy. However, either the area or shapes of distinguished features are highly skewed. The Asia North Albers Equal Area Conic shows the distortion seen in planar conical projections. The countries located around the central point are proportionally represented to one another, but the features farther from the central point are spatially skewed. Planar conical projections are efficient in representing an area centered on the line parallel to the central point of the conical shape, but distortion of the area or shape of various features is present when distance between the central line and the feature increases.

Map projections, when used correctly and displayed efficiently, are appealing and intriguing tools for spatially representing the global distribution of featured elements. Even though the accuracy of shape, area, direction, and distance may be sacrificed when manipulating the Earth’s three dimensional surface into a two dimensional surface, it is much more practical and easier to display geographical features on a two dimensional surface rather than a three dimensional surface. 

Lab 4 - Intro to ArcGIS: Proposed Airport Expansion

ArcGIS is an advantageous tool used to spatially distributed data, and organize such data into many correlated layered data formats. The complexity of ArcGIS is a great advantage for incorporating various quantitative analyses into a specific geographical region, like the “Population Density,” as well as editing such data to conform to a desired format. Despite the advantageous features of ArcGIS, in my experience, there were still challenging obstacles within the software.

Initially, the layering method of the program, layers of different data formats, was difficult to negotiate and control on a single “layout view.” While the separation of layers allows for easier control of features on each layer, the combined two-dimensional view, a single layout view, of each feature is difficult to alter or edit. The data frames are not able to show all edited features simultaneously on the same page layout, making it hard for the creator to distinguish all features added to the map. The problem arises from different features being sporadically left in the background or foreground, and therefore, lost or misplaced by the user. Independent objects and features should be combined into one descriptive map layer, but also easily able to be identified and individually controlled by the user.

Secondly, there were issues with the template of ArcGIS not being capable of connecting with other spatial servers. The interaction was either of low quality or, most commonly, there was no interaction available between other servers. Specifically, the ArcCat is not designed for movement of different hard drives. When I attempted to move outside the ArcCat frame, it was ineffective at storing my files even when the files were within the same folder.

Lastly, and personally the most frustrating aspect of ArcGIS was not being able to review and edit previous maps without saving the map after each step. If I did not save my file after each edit, then it was extremely difficult to undo my work or edit a feature without having to start from the beginning on certain elemental features. A programmable feature which automatically saves the file after each addition to the map would be much more efficient for the user because it would eliminate having to repeat steps not needing to undergo editing.